RedTail Golf Club

RedTail Golf Club opened in 2004 as a private club within the Heathrow Golf Community. To get you excited about becoming a member of this fantastic course, management is offering "member for a day" rates that are an excellent value for this fun and very challenging quasi links style course. Located about 35 minutes north of Orlando, RedTail will throw a little bit of everything to keep you on your "A" game. The layout comes close to making RedTail a shot makers course requiring both strategy off the tee as well as target golf to some of the greens.

With 5 sets of tee boxes and yardage ranging from 5499 to 7152 and ratings from 125 to 141, you can bite off as much as you want to challenge or pick a tee box and have an enjoyable and very memorable round. You'll find elevation changes, huge natural sand areas, berms, swales, ravines and undulating hillsides, forced carries, blind shots, plenty of sand and grass bunkers, water, dog legs, well protected greens, and more. RedTail designers must have moved a lot of dirt to create the contoured fairways and all of the berms, swales, grass, and sand bunkers. The first hole sets the stage for what you're about to encounter during your round – a 434 yard par four with a blind uphill shot to a narrow landing zone with a long nasty natural waste area with boulders on the left and trees along the right plus contoured fairways with berms and mounds on the way to a second shot that requires a carry over a huge natural sand bunker to an uphill green with white sand waiting to catch you if you overshoot.

The rolling fairways, which were in very good condition, range from wide and forgiving to tight and narrow with plenty of mounds, contour, and forced carries, and strategically placed bunkers. In addition to over sixty white soft sand traps of all shapes and sizes, you need to also avoid the large natural sand bunkers (some are school bus size or bigger!) and several natural areas. Take #17 for example, the beautiful 549 yard par 5 has a natural sand bunker from the tee box all the way to the green (the good news is it borders the lake and may stop your ball from getting wet) plus 7 sand bunkers (from pot size to big enough to support two or more families and all the gear needed for a day at the beach) that line the fairway as it zig zags to the green – very fun hole! And 18 is even better!

RedTail is very well maintained and landscaped with a variety of natural fauna and other flowers and plants. When we played in February everything was dormant but I can imagine that during the season RedTail would be very colorful and scenic as it meanders up and down the rolling terrain and around the 5 lakes and ponds. The greens were in very good condition and about average speed. The bunkers have soft thick white sand but don't let that be reason to try and land in them.

Bottom line, we would go out of our way to play RedTail again and it would be hard to find a better value. We played RedTail as part of a fun filled seven days in Orlando where we rode in an Indy race car, saw alligators on an air-boat ride, sky dived in a wind tunnel, flew a 1946 World War II fighter trainer, para-sailed, swam with the manatees, ate too much good food, enjoyed some fun nightlife, golfed 9 different courses, and got very little sleep! Read our Orlando Vacation article to learn more about this adventure packed vacation.